75 people assembled on Sunday, June 14th, 26 to watch the unveiling of a mural in Chapel Street in Boyle.
Cora Molloy, on whose premises the mural is situated, stressed that public art should be in the unexpected places of our street scapes. She was motivated to commission the piece because of her membership of the “Boyle Ulysses Reading and Support Group” that has been in existence for the past 15 months.
The quote ‘Horseness is the whatness of allhorse’ inspired the young Ukrainian graphic artist Roma Stryzhalo to compose a black and white acrylic drawing on plywood of Joyce, Don Quixote on Rosinante and a lot of horses, supported by a plethora of horseshoes and wheat. The latter added a touch of his homeland, the wheat basket of Europe, to the composition, Roma pointed out in his talk on the process which he gave in English and Ukrainian. He also described how he had never sketched a horse before, so was initially very concentrated on the horseness of his model but as he drew the hundredth of the equines he had cracked the whatness of …well, allhorse.
Locally musicians Bríd O’Keefe, Sven Paetz, Annie Perry and Colin Beggan sang Ulysses-centred songs. The facilitator of the reading group and author of the renowned ‘Blooms and Barnacles’ podcast
Kelly Bryan and Sligo author and flautist Gregory Daly gave academic contributions on the Aristotelian versus Platonic world view reflected in the quote, Joyce and Cervantes, as well as the relevance of the musical contributions to the text.
There were also a lot of little sandwiches, some with Gorgonzola of course, and green and pink alcohol free Mojitos.
The sun was splitting the stones of the yard and a good time was had by the very international crowd, as there was a strong presence of the refugee community.
The event lasted from 4:30 to 6pm.
Cora thanked everyone for their support and expressed the hope that this might be only the first of many Bloomsday events in Boyle.
(Article and photograph submitted)
